What always amazes me the most about this country, is how fast you can go from extreme to extreme. One day feeling good and optimistic, and the next feeling like all hope is lost for every having a chance to live in [...]]]> Thought I’d write some of my thoughts from the past few weeks in Israel.

What always amazes me the most about this country, is how fast you can go from extreme to extreme. One day feeling good and optimistic, and the next feeling like all hope is lost for every having a chance to live in a quiet, peaceful environment. But, as always, you can pretty much live in Tel-Aviv and not know that the country is taking part in a full-on war. but once you open TV and talk to friends who are doing reserves in the army, you get sucked into it all bigtime.

I was suprised at the differences in the media coverage between New York and Israel. I flew to Tel-Aviv from New York when the fighting in Lebanon began. I remember the night I left New York, there was an article about an Israeli fighter plane hitting a building full of civilians and killing around 60. All that was shown was the wreckage and an Israeli spokesperson apologizing. When I opened the TV news in Israel the following day, they explained that there were half the amount killed, that there was a 7 hour interval between when that building was hit and when it fell down and that hizbollah was seen firing missiled from within that building. All this was not reported anywhere else. So whwat to think? Who to believe? On one side, the Israeli media is (obviously) EXTREMELY pro Israeli, and we almost don’t see any of the destruction images from Lebanon, but on the other hand, not all information is presented worldwide, leading viewers to opinions that don’t have a strong base.

The circle of people around me in Israel, very left winged, pro-peace & for giving away much of the Israeli conquered land, suprisingly, all supported Israel going into this war. There is much criticism now against our prime minister for not acting faster. People feel like the Israeli army lingered far too long before entering the south of lebanon. I was unfortunate enough to know a guy who was killed, fighiting in this pointless war. A guy, just like us, just finishing university, who was called for reserves, to fight in Lebanon. A military funeral is probably the worst type that exists, usually I think because the air aournd reaks of waste. A waste of someone who could’ve still enjoyed many years of life. That day, there were 15 other mothers who buried their kids. that just makes all my bones shiver. What a fucking waste!

Now that the fighting is over, the results are very clear: There was absolutely NOTHING achieved from this past month of fighting. The south of Lebanon is completely wrecked with many civilians and hizbollah terrorists dead, the Israeli army soaked many deaths as well, and almost none of the points from the cease-fire agreement (drafted between France-USA) are being followed through: the kidnapped Israeli soldiers are not returned and the hizbollah is not going anywhere. So there is much frustration here and a lot of disappointment. However, people continue with their lives and try to place the horrible incidents of the past month in the back of their minds. And as the world forgets, scars from this war will stay here for many years.

I know for a fact that a lot of the damage, to both countries, is caused by the media; unjust and/or not projecting the truth. But how can you know the absolute truth? Is there one?
My design expo team, the past semester, tried to take a shot at this problem, by creating a collaborative way for people to produce news articles for television. Some information about this project can be found online ( Soapbox News Network ).

Doing research for dabble.com, the online video marketplace website, over the summer, made me realize just how much information is out there and the potential for all this to occur. Its amazing how many people upload content to these sites, and the new possibilities that arise with online video. Ultimately, a user (or group of users) can use dabble to locate relevant videos, create an article, and have all the content linked to the original files. Hopefully one day in the near future, these files could be downloaded anywhere, to any device, including TVs, and seen worldwide. Having this push, I believe, would make more and more people want to create and submit articles on topics they care about.

I guess that’s the little hope I have of doing something I truly believe in, to start making some sort of change.
For the next week, though, I’ll still be on the tel-aviv beaches…